A history of English sexual morals / by Ivan Bloch ; translated by William H. Forstern.

  • Iwan Bloch
Date:
1936
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A history of English sexual morals / by Ivan Bloch ; translated by William H. Forstern. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    90/700 (page 60)
    gown, with a fiery red face, ready to couple anybody for a glass of gin or a twist of tobacco. The Governor of the prison and the Registrar got handsome incomes from these weddings. Even in 1754 public advertisements read: ' With legal warrant. Marriages are celebrated in the ancient Royal Chapel of St. John the Baptist in the Savoy Palace with the greatest secrecy, despatch and regularity. There since the time of the Reformation to the present day (more than two hundred years) legal and authentic registers have been kept. Costs amount to one guinea only,—inclusive of the five-shilling stamp. There are seven secret approaches to this chapel, five by land and two by water1.' Even more famous than these Fleet marriages were the romantic weddings of Gretna Green at which that ' helper in romantic trouble as Fanny Lewald calls him, the blacksmith of Gretna Green, officiated. Gretna Green has been the Eldorado of unhappy lovers not only in novels (English and German) but also in real life. Archenholtz gave the following account of marriages made at Gretna Green: ' The marriage ceremony at Gretna Green on the Scottish border, whither people, anxious to be united, hasten with galloping post horses from all parts of the kingdom is so famous or rather notorious that a short description is necessary here. An Englishman, who played the part of bridegroom in a scene of this kind in 1790 writes as follows: After a tedious journey our coachman at length brought us to the cottage where the cement-master mixed his mortar to build the walls of Hymen's temple. He was not at home. He was sought for half an hour and at last found in a tavern from which this high-priest of Hymen and also of Bacchus came reeling 1 Fanny Lewald, loc. cit.} pp. 79-80. Similar marriages were the so-called May fair marriages, which were celebrated at the London May Fair, and the Canongate marriages in Edinburgh. Cf. Jeaffreson, loc. cit., Vol. II, pp. 203 et seq. [60]